Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise, wife Katie Holmes and daughter Suri hit the beach party on Paloma Beach, St Jean de Cap Ferrat on French Riviera on Tuesday, having arrived as guests for Australia's richest man and fellow Scientologist James Packer's wedding to fiancee Erica Baxter, an Australian model-tuned-singer.

Cruise and wife Katie presented the image of a picture perfect family for the French paparazzi throughout the five hour party, parading their baby Suri and posing on a wharf for family shots. Katie than stripped to a black one-piece bathing suit, revealing her toned body and going for a dip in the sea with Suri.

The family was driven to the $6 million party in a luxury silver car, zooming out the front gate of the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc where many of the guests are staying. Cruise then met with the couple at the pre-wedding beach party, congratulated them and shared jokes with them as the paparazzi kept their cameras working.

James Packer is the son of the late billionaire media mogul Kerry Packer and is the Executive Chairman of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), which owns some stations of the Australian commercial television network Nine.

Packer was also a director of Australian telecommunications company One.Tel which collapsed in 2001 and cost his company over AU$300 million. He has since recovered by creating a global gambling empire.

In 2002, Packer began attending the Church of Scientology, taking courses on the Church's Dundas campus. It was reported in the Australian media that Tom Cruise had urged Packer to join Scientology and begin auditing sessions.

Tom Cruise had a very close bond with Packer, especially after his separation from Nicole Kidman.

The Sydney Morning Herald said "the bond between the two men strengthened in the wake of the collapse of telephony company One.Tel last year and his separation from wife Jodhi in June".

During this time, Packer travelled extensively to the Scientology Celebrity Centre in LosAngeles.

UPDATE: It has just been reported that the secret wedding took place at 11:00 a.m. Central European Time on Wednesday morning (that's 5:00 a.m. EST) in a secret location. It is believed the couple went either to a nearby yacht to be married by a ship's captain, or possibly to a French town hall to be married by a local mayor.